Netflix to Get Hunger Games This Year & Avengers in 2013

DailyFinance reports that Netflix will stream The Hunger Games this year, and the hit Avengers in 2013.

Rival studio Viacom also shares the joy because its Paramount division owns the domestic distribution rights for The Avengers. That's a lingering side effect of that age-old credit facility deal. And thanks to the Paramount connection, you can bet that The Avengers will show up as a Netflix stream in 2013.

Netflix has an exclusive streaming license with premium cable channel Epix until September. That's when Epix -- a joint venture between Lionsgate, Viacom, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer -- can add other digital services to the distribution slate. The non-exclusive part of the Netflix contract then continues for another three years.

I don't know anything about streaming as NF has hidden all that from me as I am only a DVD renter!

I see NOTHING about streaming when I visit NF.com.

Why they chose to hide streaming titles/options/choices from me I'll never know. Seems a great way to entice me to streaming but if it was not for Mike here, I would not now know about ANY NF streaming service!!!!!

Actually Disney distributed the Avengers they made a deal with Paramount for The Avengers and Iron Man 3, the deal still allows Paramount to put there brand on the films, you are right about EPIX though

This headline should have the word "streaming" in it. Those of us with discs will see those selections available on disc sooner than that.
The fact that this is supposed to be an enticing headline illustrates how counterproductive it was for Netflix to separate streaming from DVD plans. The company advertises itself as if it is a streaming-only provider, and new subscribers flock to it for just that, yet it gets movies relatively late especially for the impatient popcorn muncher who wants to see all the New Releases. That extra wait time goes against the progress over the years of movies becoming available for home viewing sooner and sooner.

Billdog - The Avengers according to IMDB goes to EPIX for the USA Pay-TV window, even though it's a Disney production (Disney's Pay-TV deal is with Starz). So NF streaming should get it 90 days after it premiers on EPIX. I think that's what the article meant with, "domestic distribution rights for The Avengers."

Noor - Hugo I believe is a Paramount film meaning it's destined for EPIX. NF streaming will get it 90 days after its EPIX's debut. From what I understand about The Artist, the deal calls for NF streaming to get it same-day as the DVD release, but it doesn't release on DVD for another month or two I believe.

Why don't you post a notice about how Netflix regularly shuts off HD streams for large volumes of titles, leaving only the SD streams in their place? They've been doing this consistently since the beginning of the year. Some recently afflicted titles: The Last House on the Left, Viva Maria!, Topkapi, Inserts, Friday Foster, Two for the Seesaw, Northwest Frontier, The Return of Dracula, Oklahoma Territory, Masque of the Red Death, Billion Dollar Brain, Fitzwilly, Marat/Sade, Arabian Nights, and In Which We Serve. And believe me, this is only a small fraction of the number that's been affected.

Search for any of these titles at InstantWatcher and you'll see the "HD" label. But, on Netflix, the HD stream has been removed. Stream one of them, and you'll see that indeed it's not streaming in HD.

Having watched at least one of the above when it was still available in HD (about two weeks ago), I can attest to the fact that the quality has changed. Why the fuck are they doing this? Furthermore, why does everyone at Netflix pretend to ignorance regarding such matters? These people are liars. Furthermore, they are extraordinarily unhip plebes. Their reductive decision-making, wherein the customer continues to get less and less for their money, is almost always at the expense of interesting titles, such as foreign, independent, and pre-1980 films, such as all the above.

Postscript: all the affected titles seem to be MGM titles, for what that's worth. I wonder what's going on. I first noticed this months ago, when 'Echo Park' was suddenly no longer streaming in HD, and I had to sit twice as far away from the screen to minimize the obviousness of its new lo-res existence. It's particularly frustrating that this seems to happen randomly and without warning.

"Quality" - explain that to me tragedy. This year they will also get "The Grey" & "Act of Valor" both were #1 at the Box office the week of their debuts. Or maybe you should explain what you expect for $8 a month on hundreds of devices. Back in the day when I had cable I remember Showtime/HBO only debuting new movies on Saturday Nights. In the last week alone NF streaming has added recent titles such as Killer Elite, Don't be Afraid of the Dark and Shark Night. Along with dozens of catalog titles.

noor - I got curious and went looking for the link where it said 'The Artist' would be same day as DVD and I can't find it. Could've sworn it was the only title in the TWC deal to be same day, but maybe I'm wrong, but I really really want to say I read that somewhere. I'm looking forward to 'Undefeated' myself.

@ CordCutte thanks, i just hope end of may we get better tv shows and more new fresh season to the other shows. More better titles i mean NF streaming is better now way better because may 1 tons of titles add it to the NF streaming.

I hope more fresh titles tv shows and movies will appear by end of the month and i cant wait to see the artist to appear.

I wish Amazon would get serious with streaming like they have with their books BoB. Did you see today that they will have all of the Harry Potter books in their "lender library" for Prime subs? That's a big deal, their digital book side is AWESOME... their streaming not so much. I remember being in High School and being a wrestling fan, WCW/ECW died and the WWF(E) was the only show in town and the product dropped so badly I haven't watched pro wrestling since (or maybe I just got older). Point being, competition makes everyone better. I hope Amazon fixes their crappy UI and gets more content.

As for the Weinstein deal the article I read said "Other TWC specialty films that will appear exclusively on Netflix within one year of their theatrical releases", no where did it say it would be available to streaming the same day as the DVD release. It is an exclusive deal though and I can't wait for them and more Epix content.

If all the titles in question are from one particular studio I'd say it's a safe bet it's the studio that made them change it, why would Netflix make that decision? Netflix is in a position where they need to let the studios make the calls, otherwise they could lose the content all together. For all the folks that complain about things like this on here, I hope you post comments for those studios too.

Smeegle, you're right. Anything that's streaming on Epix has lost its HD stream on Netflix. The senior supervisors in their customer service department are not aware of any of this. They continue to claim it's my bandwidth, which represents a cocktail of ignorance, condescension and outsourcing of blame. Fuck them.

I agree Tim. I cannot find any blogs/news articles about this. I really hope this is a glitch. I was a fan of the EPIX deal when it was signed, even with the 90-day delay. Last week when the Apple/EPIX rumors came out it was revealed that the deal was only exclusive for the first 2 years (the final 3 are not). If HD is gone/done from here on out, coupled with the deal being non-exclusive for 3 out of the 5 years I think I will have to change my opinion of the contract. 90 day delay, non-exclusive for 60% of the contract and no HD? Yeah, not worth the rumored 200 million a year NF is paying them.

What Epix content was shown in HD on netflix? I don't recall seeing any major movie in HD. Most of the HD stuff were TV shows and low budget or old movies, not major recent flicks...at least I don't recall any.

FearNo1, if you scroll up, I name a selection of such titles. Search for them on Instantwatcher.com and they still appear with the HD label, which has disappeared (along with the corresponding streams) from those titles on Netflix. But, the number of affected titles, as I mentioned, numbers in the hundreds.

More recent titles? Rabbit Hole, True Grit, and Winter's Bone are three that come to mind.

I don't like your apparent distinction between the significance of "low budget or old movies" and "major recent flicks." But that's another discussion.

Virtually all of their recent stuff is HD Fear. Relativity Films(Some Ex: Limitless, Season of the Witch, Skyline), Open Road Stuff (Killer Elite) & Film District Films(Insidious, Don't be afraid of the Dark) are all deals that have HD streaming.

I'm wondering since originally Netflix stated they would get HD over time from the EPIX deal, perhaps they also have HD blackout periods. Unless there's a glitch, which I highly doubt, this is the only reasonable explanation. IMHO Netflix should make an announcement to their customers through their blog or email at the least.

Winters Bone, True Grit, Hot Tub Time Machine... all list non-HD, I could've sworn I have watched each at some point in HD. With this weekend's box office, NF streaming has 6 of the top 15 films lined up for streaming. 5 of those 6 are via EPIX, takes a lot of luster off if they're not in HD.